You do not have enough thrills in life and you decided to have a lizard, but do not have a clue what to feed it and how to keep the lizard at home? We bring to your attention some useful recommendations.
Terrarium
Before you start a lizard, you need to install a terrarium at home. The lizard should have a habitat, otherwise it will be able to escape, get sick, get hurt. The terrarium can be cubic or vertical, the height should be equal to two lengths of an adult body.
At the bottom of the terrarium, fill the soil without fertilizers and additives, sand or put a special rug, or coconut shavings. You can also use paper, large pieces of bark or shavings for rodents. Set the terrarium so that its central part is at eye level.
Decoration of the terrarium
As is known, in nature lizards like to be on trees for a long time. Therefore, fix in the terrarium a few thick branches and your pet will feel at home. You can also apply pine bark as a trunk, attaching it to the walls of the terrarium. The bark must be rough.
To decorate the terrarium, you can use cork plates for climbing, stones, artificial plants. These plants, naturally, should be safe for lizards, for example, without thorns, which can be injured. They should well withstand the weight of the lizard, so that it does not slip and fall. Still it is necessary to mean, that these artificial plants could withstand an elevated temperature regime and not melt. They are best placed in pots to facilitate cleaning.
Temperature conditions
In order to keep the lizard in a comfortable environment for it, it is necessary to provide it with the necessary temperature regime. In the daytime there should be two temperature zones: hot - heated to 36ºC and cold with a temperature of 30ºC, and night temperature should not be lower than 21ºC. Various external heaters such as incandescent lamps, infrared or glass-ceramic lamps are used for heating. With the help of heating mats the soil is heated.
Lighting
Also need to provide coverage: the brighter, the better. Install the ultraviolet lamp in the terrarium. In one large terrarium, the presence of several heated areas makes it possible to keep several lizards at home.
Humidity
But especially you need to pay attention to the humidity level, which should be 50-70%. To ensure the desired level of humidity, place a bowl of water in the cool zone of the terrarium, the size of which must correspond to the size of the lizard so that it can freely climb and get out of it. You can also increase the humidity by wet sponges and spraying. But at the same time, increased humidity can lead to the formation and spread of fungus and pathogenic bacteria. Now you need to worry about ventilation.
The contents of the house of several lizards
Lizards are divided into several age categories:
- young - from 0 to 3 months
- adolescents - from 4 to 12 months
- young individuals - from 13 to 19 months
- adult individuals - from 20 months and older.
In a terrarium large enough - 1000х1000х500 and with several heating zones, you can contain simultaneously several young individuals or four growing lizards or two adult individuals. It is absolutely unacceptable to keep lizards of different ages in the same terrarium. In extreme cases, you can put a young and adult lizard together, which will require very careful observation of them. If they begin to show aggression towards each other, then it is better to arrange them. Also, one should not keep males together, since they will start to suppress other individuals.
Feeding
In summer adult lizards are fed three times a week, and in winter twice a week. Young lizards need to be fed every day until six months of age. Then they are transferred to three meals a day in winter and four meals a day in summer, until reaching the age of two. In the diet of lizards include insects: flour worms, crickets, spiders, small mammals, bird eggs, and even other lizards. You can prepare a useful mixture consisting of 40% finely grated carrots, 40% finely chopped meat, 20% chopped salad, add calcium, vitamins and mix everything.
Lizard feeding should be done during its maximum activity. If several small lizards and teenagers are together in the terrarium, then they should be fed separately. You need to make sure that the food has been eaten, since the remaining insect can harm the lizard. The lizard can eat badly, but drink plenty of water and still be active, in this case you should not worry. It is necessary to have a container with water in the terrarium, which must be changed every day.
Adults, already tamed lizards, eat themselves from the bowl, and young lizards and adolescents should be fed with tweezers. After the end of feeding, always wash with soap and hands.
Reproduction of lizards
Reproduction of lizards is best to begin when the female reaches the age of two years. It is believed that before it is very harmful, the female can even die. But males mature for breeding at one-year-old age.
To begin the breeding process is best in a cool dry season, during which lizards are inactive, then comes a warm wet season, when they revitalize and become active, and a month later comes the period of mating games. After laying eggs, the offspring should appear after 10 weeks.
After mating, the female must be transplanted into a separate terrarium, the bottom of which is lined with a soil mixture with peat and moss 2 cm thick. Since the lizard will not itself search for and dig a site for masonry, it is better to prepare it in advance. The female will bury 8-14 eggs. After that, the eggs are removed and placed in raw vermiculite, half buried. The temperature during the incubation period should be maintained at 28-29 ° C and not more than 30 ° C. Egg ripening occurs within 70 days.
As soon as the lizards hatch, they are also transplanted separately. The terrarium should be with a high temperature, it needs to be sprayed 2-3 times a day. It is desirable that there is access to natural sunlight. It is necessary to give calves and vitamins daily 3-4 times a week.